I found out that Reinaldo is taking my visual thinking course a second time so I asked him some questions

Here are his answers

Mathias: first just tell me a bit about yourself. Where is home? What do you enjoy in life?

Reinaldo: I live in São Paulo, in an apatment on Avenida Paulista, which is said to be the financial heart of the city but I just fell in love with it because of the living room window looking out on the Avenue from the 22nd floor. I enjoy being with people who speak from their hearts. I love being among friends — who are just a few but who I can count on at any time. And the ordinary stuff most people have fun doing — travelling, watching movies, dating and lying on the beach sipping caipirinhas!

M: when you joined the Think Clearly course last year what were you expecting that it would be like?

R: I thought I was going to learn how to perfect my drawing techiniques, basically. I am the type who can barely draw a square and thought maybe after the course I wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of other people when trying to sketch what I was thinking.

M: what was your actual experience in the course? The high moments but also the low moments.

R: I never thought it was going to be such an amazing journey inside myself. I did learn how to perfect my drawing techniques through very straightforward tips and examples and felt I got what I expected but the most enjoyable part was to keep seeing your life go through your eyes after each task, when we were asked to represent our thoughts visually. It sounded daunting at times but int the end I always felt a sense of achievement.

I keep my sketchbook from the course and often times I go back to it to keep reminding me of what I can do. I wish we could have an entire week with Mathias and maybe have some time on a one-to-one coaching scheme which was not possible because of the size of the class and the time constraints.

M: how has it affected your life and work since you took the course?

R: I developed an affection towards trying to express myself in different ways other than writing or speaking. I discovered there is a power in building your ideas visually and sharing them with the world. It is a freeing, magical thing. Now, whenever I see concepts expressed through icons, characters, diagrams, storyboards,etc. I can directly relate to the effort the person made to get there and how much can be conveyed without text.

M: it’s quite unusual that someone wants to take the same course twice. Normally you want to take the next step. But you have chosen to do this one again. Why?

R: Firstly because I’m very demanding of myself haha… But most importantly because I think each activity we did dealt with ver deep and inspiring aspects of my imagination and reflection that I thought we could have spent more time on them. Therefore, I am certain I can profit from doing them again because not ony the result wil be completely diferent (in visual terms I mean) but I’ll be able to tap into other corners of my being that were left untouched the first time. And the sensation — even though it was a bit unsettling at times, depending on the task, because of the amount of thinking and reflection upon aspects of life it provoked — it was tremendously rewarding!